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People from across the Catholic community in Ottawa (including the Nuncio!) came together a few nights ago to celebrate a choral High Mass in the Anglican Use, the first time this particular feast day has been celebrated with full choral music by ordinariate Catholics in the city. (The first write-up from the evening can be found here: Anglican tradition Candlemas with the Papal Nuncio.)

The Feast of the Presentation of our Lord in the Temple is the close of the opening portion of the Church’s liturgical year and the end of the Christmas season, and as such it is an incredibly rich occasion liturgically, didactically, prophetically, Biblically, and in its imagery. As our Lord himself submits to the law of Temple worship, so we Christians follow his example in praying the mass.

For this particular mass, the setting was Harold Darke’s Communion Service in E, commonly known as ‘Darke in E’. While a popular setting amongst Anglicans, many Catholics have never heard it, and many ordinariate congregations don’t yet have the musical resources to do such choral settings on a regular basis.

There were multiple motets, including Eccard’s When to the Temple Mary Went, Poston’s Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, and Byrd’s polyphonic alleluia proper, Alleluia Senex Puerum, from his great Gradualia.

Other propers, and chanted antiphons for the Candlemas rite at the beginning of mass, were done according to Healey Willan’s settings of the English chants in Gregorian plainsong, and the psalm was sung in Anglican chant as well.

The canticle Nunc Dimittis was sung from Stanford in C, which was a particularly poignant dose of patrimony for many of us.

There were also of course numerous classic Anglican hymns, including Of the Father’s Love Begotten, Sing We of the Blessed Mother, and At the Name of Jesus. The organist for the occasion was Matthew Larkin, and the splendid music was complemented by moments of profound silence and a great sense of peace and joy throughout the service.

Afterwards, many expressed how beautiful they found the liturgy and one Latin rite Catholic who normally isn’t able to attend mass with such sacred music commented “Everything I heard was beautiful… I get it. I so get it. It is uplifting and appropriate for the splendour of what is happening in a way that complements but does not distract. Bad music or beautiful music badly executed are both distracting. If this was my norm, wow…”

For us Anglican Catholics in the ordinariate, it is so important to not take our Anglican tradition for granted, but to cherish it and make full use of it in order for it to really assume, and grow into, its full potential in the Catholic Church.

The Anglican tradition, as Pope Benedict XVI so insightfully recognized, has immense potential to glorify God and evangelize souls. Its beauty reveals what Catholic worship really is and attracts people to the unity of the one universal Church.

It was a real blessing to have the Papal Nuncio with us, as well as numerous university students, CCO missionaries, and sisters from the Queenship of Mary, all of whom stayed for fellowship afterwards in the parish hall and many of whom came later to the pub too.

As we celebrate the Lord’s presentation in the ancient Temple of Jerusalem, it is only fitting that we present ourselves, our souls and bodies, as well as our worthy Anglican patrimony, before the Lord in his holy worship.

[Below are three clips from the evening: the Psalm in Anglican chant from the Canadian Psalter; the Introit in English plainsong; and the Communion motet, Poston’s Jesus Christ the Apple Tree]

Psalm 24 in Anglican chant, being sung through by some of the singers before the service. The chant is by J. Barnby and is taken from the Canadian Psalter. “…Who is the King of glory? even the Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.” :

The Introit was sung in English plainsong in a setting pointed by Healey Willan. Anglicans have sung Gregorian plainsong in English for generations, and this is most definitely a treasure we can share with the wider Latin Church. Suscepimus (Ps 48 :8,9,1): “We have waited O God for thy loving-kindness in the midst of thy temple; according to thy Name, O God, so is thy praise also unto the world’s end; Thy right hand is full of righteousness. Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised: In the city of our God, even upon his holy hill. Glory be… We have waited…” :

The Communion motet was the beautiful setting by Elizabeth Poston (1905-1987) of Jesus Christ the Apple Tree (18th century):

“It was revealed unto Simeon by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death until he had seen the Lord’s Anointed” -Communion Proper for Candlemas, DWM

The Anglican liturgy in the Catholic Church is to be the subject of a new research focus of the Catholic Theological Faculty at the University of Vienna, it was announced this week.

The academic project will be led by Professor Hans-Jürgen Feulner, a specialist in liturgy who has long had a great interest in the Anglican tradition. Prof. Feulner was a member of the Holy See’s Anglicanae Traditiones Commission that compiled the Divine Worship missal and has been further integrating the Anglican tradition into the liturgical life of the Catholic Church.

While this prestigious and ancient university’s deepening focus on our Anglican liturgy is of interest to all Catholics of the Anglican tradition, such academic interest in our rite will prove of particular importance to our priests. In fact, multiple priests from the various ordinariates are just now beginning doctoral-level studies as part of this new program.

It is only fitting that a new academic interest in the Anglican form of the Western Rite kicks off with a liturgical celebration in that rite, and so an Anglican Use Mass will be held this Sunday, November 11th, at 5:30pm in the Vienna Minoritenkirche.

An Austrian Catholic media outlet has reported on the news (German-language), a simple online-translated English version of which can be read below.

A new Anglican-tradition gradual in prayerbook English for Catholic use has been published. “The Saint Peter Gradual: The Chants of the Mass for Sundays, Solemnities, and Feasts” has been made specifically for Anglican ordinariate use but is helpful also for celebrations according to the Roman rite (OF). Published by Newman House Press, it was prepared by the Canadian ordinariate Dean, Fr Carl Reid, and is an adaptation of The English Gradual of Francis Burgess.

Dean Reid’s gradual reproduces the essential psalm tones and chants of the Burgess in the same modern notation, and the texts of the propers are presented according to the arrangement as found in Divine Worship: The Missal.

This is only the second gradual ever developed specifically for the Anglican patrimonial liturgy in the Catholic Church, and New Liturgical Movement has already reported on its publication. The first such resource was The Anglican Use Gradual, arranged by C. David Burt and published originally in 2004. That volume remains in use today, but with the changes implicated in the switch from the Book of Divine Worship (2003) to Divine Worship: The Missal (2015), an updated and revised edition has been prepared and awaits publication.

A third new gradual for the Anglican Use is also rumoured to be in development by yet another editor. That third volume, and David Burt’s newly updated Anglican Use Gradual, would both be in traditional plainsong notation. One uses mostly Burgess-style psalm tones and the other the more melismatic Gregorian chants, both adapted to the DWM arrangement of the minor propers. All three of these new graduals will make it easier for ordinariate and other congregations to glorify God in accordance with the Anglican tradition.

These works, while arguably individually incomplete or imperfect, build upon the work of previous generations and make the Anglican patrimony yet more available for the purposes of Catholic worship. Unfortunately, the reticence of The Saint Peter Gradual’s introductory material to properly credit our “Anglican” patrimony will only encourage a growing sense of an inexplicable antagonism towards uttering the a-word, which is odd given how explicit Pope Benedict was. (This problem is awkwardly highlighted by the erroneous mention of “Divine Worship: The Roman Missal” in the table of contents.)

This gradual doesn’t identify its own Anglican tradition, but it clearly falls therein. Interestingly, “The English Gradual” on which it is based, being self-evidently Anglican, refers to itself as in relation to the “Western Rite” and as falling within the tradition of the “English Rite”, and its chants have been used in our Anglican Use congregations, both pastoral provision and ordinariate, for years.

In spite of the identical openings of the English Gradual’s Preface and the Saint Peter Gradual’s Editor’s Note, asserting that “These simple settings… are intended for the use of parish choirs…”, there are other statements that seem to touch on the frequently misunderstood post-conciliar call for “actuosa participatio”. At one point, it is suggested that “congregational access to the propers of the Mass” is one of “the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions” of the Anglican Communion that Pope Benedict called “a precious gift”. Later on, in the Bishop’s foreword, it is said that “What is… ‘patrimonial’ about this collection is not only that this Gradual preserves these chants for Catholic worship, but that it makes them available as the property of the people and not simply as a resource for the performance of expert choirs and cantors.”

Of course, most of us will see the simpler fact: What is most patrimonial about this is that these are the same chants many have long used as Anglicans! They are our old Anglican propers and chants re-published for us to continue using as Catholics. This is a continuation of our Anglican tradition for which we can but give thanks, but only if we can first recognize it as such.

Elsewhere, our Anglican patrimony is recognized obliquely as “the noble patrimony of English Christianity” that Anglicanorum Coetibus mandates us to treasure and share, or as “our Ordinariate patrimony”. Never, sadly, is “Anglican patrimony” explicitly identified or credited. This is, of course, a strange hang-up that Anglicanorum Coetibus itself does not suffer from, as the whole Apostolic Constitution is centred on recognizing, preserving, cherishing, and sharing the good, true, beautiful and Catholic essence of the Anglican tradition, and as it explicitly permits us to establish seminary programs for our future priests to form them in the ‘Anglican’ patrimony (cf. Art. VI §5). It never once mentions anything “English”.

Let us not shy away from speaking proudly of this very thing; let us give thanks precisely because this new Catholic volume is a significant preservation of our specifically Anglican patrimony.

Today on All Saints’ Day, the imminent publication of the very first pew missal for the Anglican Use liturgy has been announced. To be published by Catholic Truth Society (CTS) in the UK, and entitled “The CTS Divine Worship Sunday Missal (People’s Edition)”, this latest version of the Divine Worship missal is meant to be used by laymen in the pews. Until now, no such missal meant specifically for lay use has been published in the almost four-decade history of the Anglican tradition in the Catholic Church.

This pew edition will be distinct from “Divine Worship: The Missal” (in either its Altar or Study Editions) in that it will only contain the texts for Sundays and major Holy Days, omitting those for other weekdays. It will include the texts of the major propers from the RSV-2CE lectionary that otherwise are found in two separate volumes for use in the sanctuary. I suspect it will also omit the GIRM, which was included in the previous editions of the Divine Worship missal. You might even say this new book is for the prayers of us common folk in the pew. Might we consider it our new book of common prayer?

In fact, in each of these respects, this new lay missal hews more closely to the model of the Book of Common Prayer. But it is not only akin to the BCP in its inclusion of Sundays and feast days, collects and readings, and so much more of our Anglican patrimony. It’s very nature is meant to bear the Catholic substance of the BCP, as the various books of Divine Worship have been compiled to encapsulate the Anglican tradition principally found in the BCP, and also in the Anglican and English Missals, and even material from our ancient Sarum rite.

Let’s take today’s collect for the feast of All Hallows, known nowadays as All Saints’ Day. What follows is the Collect from the Book of Common Prayer (specifically the 1962 Canadian edition). In the Divine Worship missal, nothing of the BCP collect has been removed, and the few parts distinguished below (like ‘through their intercession’) are all that has been added for Anglican use in the Catholic Church:

“O Almighty God, who hast knit together thine elect in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of thy Son Christ our Lord: Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed Saints in all virtuous and godly living, that through their intercession we may come to those unspeakable joys, which thou hast prepared for them that unfeignedly love thee; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.”

As is immediately obvious, our Anglican tradition has not only been preserved in its essence and in its integrity, but it has been completed, made whole, and rendered not only even more Catholic but also fully authoritative. In a sense, our Anglican tradition has been perfected and made fully Catholic. While there is yet more to be done, the books of Divine Worship have been an incredible gift to Anglican Catholics.

In the Catholic Church and in the Anglican ordinariates, the Anglican tradition finds its fulfillment and its full Catholic expression. Anyone interested in more details about this new edition of our missal or how to acquire a copy, please see the CTS website.

As the Introit for today puts it, “Rejoice we all, and praise the Lord, celebrating a holy-day in honour of all the Saints: in whose solemnity the Angels are joyful, and glorify the Son of God. Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous: for it becometh well the just to be thankful. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”

This author describes her experience visiting an ordinariate parish, the first time she had attended our liturgy. Her experience echoes that of many others who have had a chance to pray in the Anglican tradition of the Catholic Church, but I think there is a point that needs to be added to one of her conclusions.

“I was grateful for the establishment of the Ordinariate, but I confess… that I did think sometimes… Why can’t they just become Roman…?

If you have the opportunity, I’d encourage you to worship with an Anglican Use community. Here’s what struck me about the liturgy:…

The differences between this and the Roman Rite Mass were clear. I’m sure you can find discussions and comparisons online, perhaps even contentious ones. The structure is, of course, the same, but the differences are intriguing and expressive of a more explicit sense of humility as well as greater formality than your typical, contemporary Roman Rite Mass…

What struck me most about the Anglican Use liturgy was the same thing that struck me about Eastern Rite liturgies – not the external postures so much as the internal posture of humility which it assumes and fosters. The emphasis is on supplication and humility. You don’t pray “have mercy on us” a zillion times as you do in an Eastern liturgy, but you do say it – or something like it – a lot more than you do in the Roman Rite.

You will say a lot more of everything in the Anglican Use liturgy. The post-Vatican II Roman Rite is quite stripped down and streamlined, that being, of course, one of the intentions of those who constructed it. There is a verbal richness about the Anglican Use that I found comforting and akin to a richly adorned physical space.

So, it was a great experience, and I finally ‘get it.’ I get the reluctance to leave it behind – it preserves much – not just in the Mass itself, but in the other traditions that the Anglican Use brings with it that were lost in the Roman Rite after the Second Vatican Council…”

This reaction highlights the internal Latin nature of the Anglican liturgical tradition. Since the Catholic Church didn’t begin the process of re-integrating the Anglican liturgy until the Pastoral Provision in 1980, and then greatly sped up post-2009, the more traditional form of the Anglican liturgy didn’t undergo the same dramatic rupture that affected the Roman Rite after the Council. So the Latin tradition has been preserved in Anglican liturgy in ways that it hasn’t in the 1970 Roman Missal.

That said, many people cherish the Anglican Use because it is more traditionally Roman in some respects than even the common form of the Roman rite itself. But this is not the principle raison d’etre of the Anglican Use.

Anglicanorum Coetibus gave Catholics in the Anglican ordinariates the ability to pray using our own traditional “liturgical books proper to the Anglican communion” as well as the “Roman rite” in either its Ordinary or Extraordinary Form.

The liturgical integration produced by the Anglicanae Traditiones Commission, that was setup to analyse the Anglican liturgical texts and secure the Holy See’s approval, is intended to establish the received Anglican liturgy in the Catholic Church, shorn of any Protestant elements and re-centred on its own integrity as found in its own history.

The work of the Anglicanae Traditiones Commission – excellent, but arguably incomplete – has been another step in the healing of two ruptures in the Anglican liturgical tradition, a healing that began with the work of a similar committee of the Roman Curia back in the 1980s. The rupture in Anglican liturgy wasn’t just synchronic vis-à-vis other Catholic liturgies extant today, but also diachronic vis-à-vis its own past and traditional origins prior to Cranmer’s works.

So what the liturgy of the ordinariates actually preserves is the inner Catholic integrity of the Anglican tradition, which itself reflects the intrinsic Latin logic of Anglican liturgy. It was not mandated by Anglicanorum Coetibus so as to be what the Second Vatican Council intended with the liturgical reform, even if that is what, in the end, it has actually come to resemble.

Further masses are now being announced, and the group has even been featured recently in New Liturgical Movement and the National Catholic Register. As one of the group’s young organizers, Sarah Rodeo, so aptly puts it, “The liturgy must be good, true and beautiful, because the God we worship is good, true and beautiful.”

The first mass will be followed by a second on Saturday, October 27th, and then by masses on November 3rd, and December 11th. Each of these Saturday evening masses will be in the Anglican Use and will take place at 6:30pm at St Joseph’s Catholic Church, New Haven.

The choral masses will be sung by a professional quartet and will feature traditional Anglican hymns, Anglican chant psalms, English plainsong, and English polyphony.

There is one other centre of Anglican Catholicism in New England, the joint parish community of St Athanasius & St Gregory the Great in Boston. But as the group notes, “The celebration of these Masses is the culmination of the efforts the Ordinariate Fellowship of Connecticut, a group of people looking to establish a church of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter in CT.“

The Catholic Church is blessed by the efforts of such small but growing groups, and it’s great to see their efforts bearing fruit. This new Ordinariate Fellowship of Connecticut is rightly attracting more and more interest as they begin their regular choral masses.

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